


Midsummer's Day

by Phoenixflames12



Category: His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, the amber spyglass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-13
Updated: 2019-09-13
Packaged: 2020-11-02 05:01:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20629700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phoenixflames12/pseuds/Phoenixflames12
Summary: After the events of The Amber Spyglass, Lyra and Pantalamion return to The Botanical Gardens and reflect on Will and Kirjava





	Midsummer's Day

**Author's Note:**

> His Dark Materials has been a part of my reading canon for as long as I can remember, but it was only after a recent re-read of The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass that I fully began to understand the connection between Lyra and Will and I only hope that I've done them justice.

The bells of the city are striking noon as a tall, long limbed girl dressed in the simple brown tunic and white blouse of the girls’ school with tangled ropes of hair tumbling down her back and her pine martin daemon slip the key into the lock and push open the garden gate.

The light casts dappled shadows through the leaves, patches of sunlight pooling in swarths of shadow by the trunks of the great Oaks, pines and silver birches that shade the garden.

Pantalaimon runs on ahead, a blaze of tawny russet against the grass, scaling the nearest pine, their witches’ secret of separation catching at Lyra’s heart as she watches him leap from branch to branch, delighting in his blood-soaked freedom.

Slowly, she shifts her book satchel against her shoulder, the comforting familiarity of the aleithometer thudding in her tunic pocket. Someday, someday soon, when life at school stops feeling as if she’s in another world, she will pick up the courage to knock on Dame Hannah’s door and ask if she can consult her books, letting the knowledge that is hidden somewhere in the darkness of her brain flow back through her.

Her eyes still on Pan leaping from branch to branch, she moves slowly towards a small, wooden bench, its’ white paint chipped and peeling in the sunlight.

The same bench that she had sat on with Will and Kirjava in Will’s Oxford, nursing the ghost of a kiss during those last precious moments before he had let go of her completely, taken the knife and cut through towards their own world.

‘We could never have stayed with them. You know that, don’t you?’ Pan has crept up to her lap without her hearing, his warm, lifegiving weight flowing against her chest, his forepaws resting on her shoulders, dark eyes bright and sad.

‘I know,’ she murmurs in reply, pressing him close, resting her face in his tawny pelt.

‘That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt.’

He gives a small mew of agreement and she is sure that he is reliving, as she is, those first long nights spent in her cubicle in St Sophia’s, curled up in her bed with her head buried firmly in her salt soaked pillow desperately trying to muffle her sobs so that the other girls or, worse still, the short, thickset matron with her black Labrador daemon would not hear and come looking, eyes burning with tears for Will.

Her hands bury themselves deeper into his glossy fur, his weight against her chest a solid comfort, a reminder of all that she, all that they still have left in this world.

‘I know you didn’t ask for this,’ he murmurs after a while, nuzzling his snout against her neck and she remembers a moment very much like this one on an evening not long ago, as they had sat on the parapets of Jordan college not long after their return to Oxford.

_They had been watching the sun die in a blaze of golden orange against the dome of the Body Library, lighting up the surrounding university buildings with a deep, firelit glow. _

_She had had one of the books that Dame Hannah had given her, a history of theology, open on the soft, yellow sandstone, Pan resting his paws on an open page, gazing across the city as it slowly folded its’ wings like a bird preparing for sleep. _

_Watching the last blazes of light slowly slip beneath the horizon, her heart had been consumed by an acutely exquisite shard of pain and longing for all that they had so recently lost. _

_Will holding her as they had listened to the occasional car sweeping over Magdalen bridge, the play of water in the dark from the fountain, the beat of their joined hearts and that of their daemons the only sound that mattered._

_The breeze had played in the dark lights of his hair, Lyra remembers now, (as if she could ever forget!), ruffling it up at the back, catching through her own. Had whispered back with their last words as he had pulled her close and thumbed away her tears with a shaking finger, his mouth set, eyes blazing with unshed tears. _

_‘But just keep up this coming here, once a year, just for an hour, just to be together.’ _

_And she had watched Kirjava entwine herself around Will’s legs, pressing close for comfort, her amber eyes blazing love and sorrow into Pan’s, their noses touching for one last time before he had leapt into Lyra’s arms and she into Will’s and he had unsheathed the knife one last time, stepping into a world where she could not follow. _

_And then Pan had pushed himself closer towards her breast, his head resting over her heart, his presence saying more than any words ever could. _

‘They’ll be much safer where they are,’ he murmurs now and she tightens her hold on him, silently burying her head in his fur, so that he didn’t he have to see her tears. ‘In their own world.’

The truth of his words sting her heart, but all she can do is nod, because he is right, he nearly always is and there is nothing that she can do about it.

‘I know that. I know. But… Oh Pan,’ she whispers when the tears have been spent, the words choked out in a cold, wet whisper. Overhead, the branches of the great silver birch creak and shiver in the wind rustling against her hair and a nightingale is singing, the notes a beautifully soft shiver in the soft May air.

‘I just wish that it wasn’t so! I can’t bear it, I can’t!’

‘I know,’ Pan murmurs again, suddenly sounding so old and wise that her throat constricts again and she has to fight back the new sobs.

‘But bear it we must, my dear,’ he muses, nuzzling against her cold, clear cheek.

‘You’re right,’ Lyra murmurs; feeling a deep, broken breath course through her, one that shatters her lungs and leaves her gasping, scrubbing away her tears with the back of her hand.

Overhead, the great clocks of the Oxford churches begin to chime in the half hour. One is far off- towards Jericho, she thinks, one- the bell of St Mary and the Virgin, close and long and low, another grave, a third cracked and small and peevish.

‘We’ve got half an hour until our next class, if we’re lucky. We should be getting back.’ Pan’s voice is a tickle against Lyra’s ear as he flows up to curl about her neck and she nods, making to stand.

Slowly, she adjusts her book bag and moves away to look at the white chipped bench.

In his Oxford, at that very moment, she hopes that Will will be there, with Kirjava.

That he will listen to those same bells and see the little breeze that is stirring the leaves at her feet, hurrying her to be on her way.

That he will remember.

* * *

_ **Fin** _

**Author's Note:**

> Please feel free to read and review! 
> 
> Comments, questions, constructive criticisms etc are like chocolate to my brain!
> 
> Much love,
> 
> Phoenixflames12 xxx


End file.
